It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there were Disney workers at D23 Expo 2019 belting out Disney show tunes and inviting people to join in.

These particular singers weren’t professionals, however. They normally work retail at the Disneyland Resort and were doing it to amuse people standing in long lines.

“You don’t know how many Disney songs you know until people start shouting out lyrics to you,” said Tiffany Barrett of Moreno Valley, who was sent into the crowd at the D23 Expo with Maylynne Rodriguez of Los Angeles to entertain those who were lined up.

From left, Melanie Duke and Ava Duke smile after answering a Disney trivia question at the D23 Expo on Saturday, August 24, 2019. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Maylynne Rodriguez asks attendees of the D23 Expo Disney trivia questions as they wait in line at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday, August 24, 2019. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

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Michael Villarreal is asked a Disney trivia question while waiting in line at the D23 Expo on Saturday, August 24, 2019. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

To ease the misery of Disney fans who waited in line, sometimes for hours, to get into the pop-up DreamStore at the D23 Expo fan convention in Anaheim, Barrett and Rodriguez – both retail workers from the Disneyland Resort – were asked to play trivia games and tell jokes to those in line, starting on Thursday and continuing through the weekend.

Although they’re not professional entertainers, Barrett and Rodriguez were having fun with the crowd when they spontaneously started asking guests to finish the lyrics of Disney songs.

Before they knew it, the pair, who were wearing microphone headsets, were belting out Disney songs and urging the crowd to join in. The improvisation paid off, and soon some weary guests were singing along enthusiastically.

“This year has been a great experience,” Rodriguez said, adding this is the first time it’s happened.

Missy McClure, who has been working the 2019 event as a “retail experience integration” staffer, said they brought a large number of Disneyland cast members over to help with the store, but she assigned the pair specifically to entertain the crowd – because of their personalities.

She didn’t, however, expect them to become singers.

“It’s been incredible,” McClure said. “It’s made such a difference.”

One of the many people in line, Julianne Wright of Kennewick, Washington, said she thought the singing “was awesome.”

“Especially at first, because I was in line by myself and it was boring,” Wright said. “It was nice to have the entertainment.”

Marla Jo Fisher was a workaholic hard news reporter before she adopted two children from foster care at age 46, picked up a scruffy dog along the way and somehow managed to keep them all alive, at least so far. She now writes the Frumpy Middle-Age Mom humor column that appears in the Orange County Register weekly. Due to her status as the cheapest person alive, she also writes about deals and bargains for the Register, including her Cheapo Travel column which also runs in newspapers around the country. When she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's usually traveling somewhere cheaply and writing about it.

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